Threat finger at Trinamul

Sankrail, July 24: Trinamul Congress activists are allegedly threatening CPM supporters employed as para teachers and anganwadi workers in West Midnapore’s Sankrail, asking them to quit or stay away from work.

District CPM leaders claimed that some of the para teachers and anganwadi workers have been roughed up as well.

The reports of the threats come days after Mamata Banerjee issued a series of dos and don’ts for Trinamul supporters at her Brigade rally on Thursday, during which she mentioned that CPM cadres must not be harassed. They had already been punished by the people, she said.

District CPM secretariat member Dahareswar Sen said Trinamul workers were forcing the para teachers and anganwadi workers to quit because “they wanted to replace them with their people”.

CPM supporter Atanu Das, a 27-year-old para teacher of a Sankrail high school, was approached by a group of 12 local Trinamul supporters on June 30. They told him not to take classes.

“I told them that they had no business asking me not to attend school. The same night, around 50 people surrounded my home and threatened to kill me. I was so scared that I had to flee the next morning,” he said.

Das asked his pregnant wife to stay back at their Sankrail home and went to a relative’s house at Chakulia in Jharkhand.

His son was born on July 6. “A few days ago, some relatives brought my wife and son to me.” Das, who gets Rs 7,500 a month, is the only earner in the family. His father, a Vaishnavite priest, gets some money does pujas.

“But, now I can’t go to school and Trinamul supporters have stopped my father from doing pujas. How will I make ends meet? ” he asked.

Mantu Singh, a teacher of a primary school in Nepura village who is also a CPM worker, said around 50 Trinamul activists armed with axes and spears came to his school on June 29 and forced him to resign. “I was taking a class when around 50 people came with axes and spears. The men told me to resign. When I refused, they punched and kicked me,” Singh said.

“The same night, they surrounded my home and ordered me to leave the village. I fled, leaving behind my parents, wife and four-year-old daughter.”

Singh, the breadwinner of his family, was earning about Rs 5,400 a month.

Similarly, CPM worker Rani Sith had to quit her job as an anganwadi worker in Rogra. Her husband was allegedly forced by Trinamul cadres to quit as a casual worker in a local Punjab National Bank branch.

Local Trinamul leader Somnath Mahapatra said he was aware that Trinamul activists were threatening local CPM workers. “We have received reports of harassment of para teachers and anganwadi workers. We are trying to ensure that such incidents are not repeated. We have asked some para teachers to return but they are feeling scared,” Mahapatra said.